Free or cheap conference call

jgallcash

I live many miles away from home now and i need to set up a conference call between myself, my mum and her credit card company. my mum gets really nervous when dealing with people in authority over the phone.

I feel that she is being messed around but they will not speak to me about my mums affairs without having my mum there to confirm this is ok. I live 250+ miles away and being male i cannot call and pretend to be my mother. (even if i was prepared to do something illegal; which i'm not)

I was hoping that there would be some way that me and my mum could speak first and then put a call into customer services to deal with the situation.

Landline or mobile would be good. if it makes any difference i am a t-mobile customer with an lg viewty mobile. Landline is provided by by sky with bt line rental.

Any ideas anyone?

redux

Most conference calls systems involve everyone calling in to a number, and often a room number and PIN is needed, so you may have an issue persuading the company to do this rather than accept an incoming call as they usually do.

So you'd need to set it up in advance, then tell your mother the details and get her to pass it on to them, then all of you call in.

Take a look at http://www.03talk.com/ which needs no account at all, and it's just the cost of an ordinary call, no premium rates as used by some providers, You can set up either on the website, or just calling by the number


edit - actually, it's not impossible that the credit card firm itself has a conference facility, and your mother might call them and persuade them to call you and merge the calls

Sparhawke

I don't know of anything that has this kind of capability even though the infrastructure has been around for quite a while now, if you were asking for just a conferencing program I would've suggested paltalk however I haven't used it in a while and would have no idea how to set it up, but never fear for in the live help rooms are paltalk staff members, who are there just to help people get the most out of it.

If anyone knows how to set it up they would know...it is also free to use, with minimal adverts.

I am not sure what you mean about your mother not being able to pass the phone to you, if she states clearly and assertively that she is handing the phone over to her son to speak on her behalf there is not much the credit card company can do to stop it.

There is always this article to read, which is somewhat like 3 people phoning the same number at the same time of day and getting through to each other which takes some setting up...something that credit card companies dont tend to want to do lol

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1689808/setting_up_a_conference_call_everything.html?cat=3

jgallcash

she couldn't possibly hand the phone to me as i live 250+ miles away.

Thanks for your advice. I wonder if my own mobile has this capability?

Marty_J

Does your computer have a microphone?

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/allfeatures/conferencecall/

ricky9

You may have a conference call facility on your mobile
Place a call when it is answered go to options place new call
When answered go to options add to conference

lfc321

As Marty J says, you can do it on Skype if you have it. If you call your mum from Skype (she wouldn't have to be on a computer, you could call her landline, although you have to pay) and then when you've got her on the line select "add people" and dial the bank.

I think that would work. The only bit I'm not sure about is whether you'd be able to navigate through the bank's menus when they ask you to "press 1" etc

wotsthat

I use Skype all the time.

- set up an account on Skype and buy some credit

- call your mother so you are both on the line

- then call the credit card company

Total cost to you would be the cost of the call to your mother plus the cost of the call to the credit card company.

Call costs are reasonable and the quality is generally excellent.

benjus

If you have a Sky landline, can't you just do this?

http://www.sky.com/portal/site/skycom/skyhelpcentre/producthelp?nodeId=1633a343-e271-410e-b5bd-847672812b26&articleId=3115910

jgallcash

I'm not sure that my handset at home has a recall button.

Might it be called something else?